TRADITIONAL INVESTING MEETS DIGITAL CURRENCIES

More and more traditional financial services are starting to realize the dozens of potential benefits of integrating digital currencies to their existing operations. Fidelity Investments has joined the list this week.

re-posted from a recent press release

Fidelity Investments, a Boston based firm that manages client’s portfolios and provides investment advice, has announced that they have partnered with Bitcoin exchange and wallet provider service Coinbase to allow customers to view their digital assets on their Fidelity account. To incorporate holdings into their portfolios, users must keep their funds on Coinbase’s online hosted wallet.

While this could be a concern for some that are worried more about privacy as they would have to forgo control of their private keys, more casual users who are buying into crypto to give their account a little more diversity should be thrilled with the new service. Since the integration is through Coinbase, only Bitcoin, Ether, and Litecoin will be available to customers as those are the only currencies that Coinbase currently supports.

One thing to note is that while it was announced for later this year, there has yet to be support for Bitcoin Cash on Coinbase’s platform. There is no word on whether or not Fidelity will add support if Coinbase follows through on the announcement.

The additional options for users have been tested so far with employees given access to the new feature over the past few weeks. Beginning last Wednesday, all other users now have the ability to authorize Coinbase to give Fidelity the data concerning their digital assets.

In the statement released by Fidelity, the firm hopes to learn more about Bitcoin and digital currencies in general. The partnership has been expected since May of this year when Fidelity announced its plans to partner with Coinbase.

EVERYTHING TOWARDS MAINSTREAM ADOPTION

Fidelity is one of the few mainstream financial companies that are starting to cozy up to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. Due to its highly unregulated nature, most organizations don’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. However, recent price spikes have caught the attention of the rest of the financial world forcing people to pay attention to this exciting new form of payment. Companies like Fidelity that are beginning to incorporate Bitcoin into their business offerings are the best way to increase adoption all over the world.

Steve Kanaval
Portfolio Manager (Digital Currency)
Ault & Company
www.ault.com
teve began his career in the Trading Pits in Chicago making markets at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (NYSE:CME) the Chicago Board of Trade and the CBOE in the early 80’s. He ran the Morgan Stanley Derivative Prop Trading for the firm specializing in Index Arbitrage. He continued his career as a Trader/Portfolio Manager for multiple Hedge Funds during the Internet Boom of the 90’s managing large portfolios. Steve is known as an expert in MicroCap Technology Stocks and the emerging Digital Currency markets as a Portfolio Manager for his Family Office. Steve has managed portfolio’s in volatile asset classes for 3 decades as a commodity trader, hedge fund manager and digital currency trader and miner. Steve is one of the few managers who publishes his views on the asset classes in a public forum and has published more than 10,000 articles simplifying these complex and volatile assets for readers. His work is published on multiple sites including Bloomberg, Equities.com, Hacked.com, CryptoCurrencyNews as a paid contributor.
Ault & Company is a private diversified holding company identifying undervalued public & private companies and disruptive technologies that executes strategies to achieve an above market rate return and liquidity for investors while measuring impact and sustainability principles of their disruptive technology and investment strategies.